This special OZDOX SUNDAY EVENT ends a short season of this controversial film at the Chauvel Cinema. The film starts at 8.30pm. Alas, the Chauvel Cinema may be closing its doors forever on Sept 30 so come along for old times sake anyway!

Following on from the theme of last weekend's ASDA conference - LOW BUDGET FILMMAKING, in a frank discussion, Michael will outline the path to this final release. We look at the challenges, the pitfalls, the joys and tribulations of independant filmmaking... what it takes to see your dream come true WITHOUT FUNDING.

In the nature of truly independant filmmaking...
* mini-dv cameras,
* a small audio and lighting kit,
* two years shooting,
* one year in post,
* the death of Michael's mother,
* the birth of Noel's two children,
* a broken nose,
* relationship splits,
* the OFLC and the rules of classification,
* credit card crashing,
* "show me the money" blues,
* journeying in USA,
* partying in New York,
* London dungeons,
* high level tension between director and main subject,
* producer Frank Shields at Cannes,
* music composer turns into co-editor,
* thank heavens for Queerscreen in Australia
and more...

Liberty In Restraint

Q&A Guests:
Michael Ney - director & co-producer
Frank Shields - co-producer
Barton Staggs - music composer & co-editor
and various cast members.
Interviewer: Jaimie Leonarder

ABOUT THE FILMMAKER

With a number of shorts, corporates and mini-docs, and after a long and varied career in theatre, photography, multimedia and video production, this is the first documentary feature for director, Michael Ney. Over the last five years, Michael has been the video archivist for Popcorn Taxi, and over the last two years he has also been an active committee member of OZDOX - The Australian Documentary Forum, and has created the soon to be released OZDOX video archive of the last 22 programs.

For more info go to: Michael's CV

Jaimie Leonarder from the SBS Movie Show

Performer, diversional therapist, broadcaster, streetworker, nightclub impresario, archivist and champion of outsider culture - this description only touches on the dazzling diversity of Jaimie Leonarder's life so far. Jaimie (aka Jay Katz) has been involved in underground artistic ventures for well over 25 years. A couple of years ago, he was the subject of an SBS independent film called Love & Anarchy: The Wild Wild World of Jaimie Leonarder.

Jaimie is a devotee of independent cinema, running a screening venue for independent short filmmakers in his own home, called the Mu-Meson Archives, with his wife and creative partner Aspasia. Jaimie and Aspasia run a weekly film night at the Annandale Hotel, Sounds of Sinema, showing repertory cinema on 16mm film. Their current mission is to find as much lost and forgotten Australian cinema as possible. In fact they recently discovered a 16mm film print of Wake in Fright. Avid collectors of lost film footage they have became Robin Hood figures to the ABC, finding more original lost footage of early ABC TV shows than any other private organization.

More info at the SBS Website

ABOUT THE FILM

"eye popping, jaw dropping and mind bending!"
Andrew L. Urban - Urban Cinefile

Three years in the making, 'Liberty In Restraint' is an innovative look "deep behind enemy lines" exposing the life and work of fetish photographer, Noel Graydon. We see the creation of striking fetish portraits, and also explore "Suffer the Little Children" - a complex sacrilegious tableau protesting priest paedophilia, highlighting "the antics of Dr George Pell and Dr Peter Hollingsworth".

Starting as an apprentice photographer in Brisbane, Noel's desire to delve into bondage/discipline and sado-masochism quickly led him to Sydney and he leaves his photography far behind in order to become "an insider looking out" and experience all that the fetish world has to offer. Noel transformed into Master Venom and worked for four years as a 'BDSM Master' (male sex worker). He then met key personalities in this clandestine world, whom he eventually brings to light via his photographs. He was also living perilously close to the edge with drug addiction, but ultimately survived to regain his photographic prowess.

'Liberty In Restraint' picks up the story there to reveal the passion for his art and its themes. We meet Noel's friends and mentors, bondage performance artists, and many others from the community he moves within, and even enter deeply private dungeon moments to investigate their controversial, transgressive activities.

Now, fully recovered from addiction, with wife Annette and two children, Noel is gaining recognition for his unusual fine art photography. After several exhibits here, his work was recently accepted into the Seattle Erotic Art Festival, April 15-17, 2005.

Liberty In Restraint has already had a long history of success at film festivals with more scheduled in USA later this year. The DVD has just been released too.

REVIEWS

"Intriguingly compelling"
- Pat Fiske, co-head of documentary at AFTRS

Liberty In Restraint... "is a safe way to visit the pursuit of inner liberation through the restraint of bondage in the unhysterical environment created by a sincere filmmaker (who has the advantage of having dabbled in BDSM himself) with a natural cinematic eye. Whether we think Graydon's photographs are art or exploitation is irrelevant: they don't sell in porn shops, but are hung in galleries. In a way, seeing this world through Graydon's work is a filter that director Michael Ney has added to his own filtering process, which makes the film all the more interesting. And less threatening than you imagine."
- Andrew L. Urban - http://www.urbancinefile.com

"By sizing up all aspects of the fetish universe, filmmaker Michael Ney wants to show us that two themes are at work in every aspect of BDSM: compassion and trust. With a detached but relentless eye, Michael Ney takes his camera into the underbelly of this world and obliterates the notion that S&M is a form of violence. "I'm doing the doco to address a lot of misconceptions about the whole lifestyle," Ney says of Liberty In Restraint, an unashamedly heart-felt documentary that attempts to find the big heart throbbing deep within the most hardcore of sexual expressions. "It does range from very mild stuff with people being tied up to very extreme blood-letting. There have been very few good docos about it. They give an inkling of the story but no one tells the whole tale." - Julian Shaw - FILMINK Magazine

More info at media section of the Liberty In Restraint website